Cargo Bike in Canada

January 2017 · 2 minute read

I’ve had a Babboe cargo bike in Toronto for a year now, this is a review of that time.

I’ve ridden the Babboe every day for a year. Its terrific on the ice and works well in deep snow. Its amazingly useful, and gets my daughter to daycare and back each day. It holds about $200 in groceries plus a child. Its easy to peddle and only takes a few minutes to learn to ride (if you can already ride a bicycle).

Good

Cargo bikes in general are amazingly useful.

Weathered the Canadian winters well even being stored outdoors under a cover.

The wooden box is beautiful, solid and durible.

Fenders and chainguard keep you clean and comfortable even in bad weather.

Rainhood keeps passengers dry and warm even in the winter.

The tires are nice but I switched to thinner(35mm) after they wore out which I prefer.

Bad

Although it costs over $3000 the components it uses are low end. A Bullitt is much nicer but at a higher price point.

It uses drum brakes which are low maintenence but perform poorly (replaced with higher end ones with minimal improvement).

The peddles are plastic and get slippery in bad weather (replaced).

My brake cables developed rust and had to be replaced with better quality ones.

Rain hood attachment is a bit slow to put on but is great if you can leave it on.